Noun
schmuck insurance (uncountable)
(business, informal) The situation where an owner sells a company but retains a portion in case the price goes up in the future.
2023 April 5, Hobart, Byrne, Capital Gains:The solution? Instead of selling 100% of the business, the seller either keeps a stake, or keeps an option to buy back part of it later. This solution, which was apparently popularized by Time Warner CEO Dick Parsons in the early 2000s ($, WSJ), is known as "schmuck insurance”.
2011 June 13, Ovide, Shira, “The Benefits of Deal 'Schmuck Insurance'”, in The Wall Street Journal:In Wall Street parlance this is known as "schmuck insurance," a reference to the rather vulgar Yiddish word that has come to mean the equivalent of "idiot."